Ottawa torture victim declares victory in long fight for justice

Ottawa’s Abdullah Almalki has declared victory in his long fight to win justice from the Canadian government for the torture he suffered in a Syrian prison.

Almalki received an official apology Friday — and an unspecified financial settlement — from the federal government for the role its officials played in his overseas arrest and mistreatment.

The settlement ends a $100-million civil lawsuit launched by Almalki and his family more than a decade ago.

“I’m happy. With this apology, I can have peace,” Almalki said in an interview Monday. “My family and I, we’re grateful to finally have closure. This is a victory for us, a victory for Canada, and for every Canadian who holds dear the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, due process, the rule of law, equality, dignity.”

Almalki, a Carleton University engineering graduate and father of six, spent 22 months in Syrian custody after his arrest in May 2002.

He was questioned based on faulty Canadian intelligence that labelled him an “imminent threat” and tortured. The RCMP sent three pages of questions to his Syrian captors in January 2003 even though they knew it could put Almalki at risk of torture.

Almalki was cleared by a Syrian court and was never charged with a crime in Canada. In 2008, a two-year federal inquiry concluded that Canadian officials bore some responsibility for his torture because of the false and inflammatory intelligence reports which they shared with foreign agencies.

The House of Commons subsequently voted in favour of a resolution to compensate Almalki and two other Arab-Canadian men, Ahmad El-Maati and Muayyed Nureddin, who suffered similar ordeals.

The government refused, however, and for the next nine years spent millions of dollars to contest Almalki’s legal claim for an apology and compensation.

“I never lost hope,” Almalki insisted Monday. He said he’s relieved that his elderly father lived to see the apology and “can again call himself a proud Canadian.”

Ottawa’s Abdullah Almalki.Jean Levac /
Postmedia News

Under terms of the settlement, Almalki said he cannot disclose the financial details. The deal had been under negotiation for more than eight months.

At least five people have now received compensation for their mistreatment by the Canadian government in the aftermath of 9/11: Almalki, El-Maati, Nureddin, Benamar Benatta and Maher Arar. The federal government paid Arar, an Ottawa engineer, $10.5 million for his detention and torture in Syria.

Almalki said he continues to suffer the physical and psychological effects of his torture, including post-traumatic stress disorder which limits his ability to concentrate.

Still, he has forgiven those responsible for his ordeal.

“Being a Muslim, the understanding I have from my faith, is that I should condemn the bad actions of people, but I should never hate the person. That distinction between the person and the action, it was not easy for me, and I struggled for so many years.

“But I’m very thankful to God that I was able to reach the point where I was able to forgive the people who did this to me, be they the people in Canada or in Syria. I don’t have hatred. I don’t have feelings of revenge. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be held accountable for what happened.”

Almalki said he looks forward to “a quiet, normal life” and a better future. He plans to continue as a human rights and national security activist, and intends to work towards the repeal of the Anti-Terrorism Act (formerly Bill C-51), which gives Canada’s spy agency the right to actively disrupt perceived national security threats.

“I’m a living example of what could happen under C-51,” he said.

Almalki is convinced his ordeal was the result of both racism and post-9/11 hysteria.

Almalki is among the most heavily investigated individuals in Canadian history. He was the principal target of a national security task force, Project A-O Canada, and was under scrutiny for at least six years by the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the FBI. His home was raided, his friends and relatives interviewed, and his computers analyzed.

Through it all, his story never changed: His Ottawa business sold communications equipment to a large Pakistan firm, Micro Electronics, with ties to that country’s military. Any equipment found in the possession of the Taliban came not from him, he said, but Pakistan.

The RCMP, in an October 2001 letter to Syrian intelligence, labelled Almalki an “imminent threat” even though RCMP investigators wrote in a concurrent memo that they were “finding it difficult to establish anything on him other than the fact he is an Arab running around.”

During his 22 months in Syrian detention, Almalki was never visited by a Canadian consular official. Instead, Canadian diplomats helped the RCMP deliver its question list for Almalki to Syrian military intelligence.

Almalki said he was stripped of his dignity and humanity in prison, then returned to Canada to find his reputation under attack through strategic leaks. “They were very difficult feelings to reconcile: The country that I loved betrayed me and set me up for torture and did nothing to help me, then continued to smear me.”

Almalki said the government’s apology has put the “whole matter to rest” and has given him peace. He thanked everyone who has lent him support.

“Throughout the last 15 years, I have seen a very ugly side of humanity, but I also have seen a very bright, hopeful, loving side of it.”

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